Watching Dead

I love the Walking Dead television show and for a long time I didn't know why. It's almost as though it defies everything I thought I knew about my own tastes. I constantly rag on shows for being poorly written. In fact, that's usually my main argument. The writing can kill the best of ideas (Giant transforming robots? How could that possibly be bad?), while at the same time it can make masterpieces of the most ridiculous concepts (Toys that come to life when no people are around? What a baby idea for babies. Computer animation? That's like a videogame. Videogames are for babies).

When I read that the Walking Dead's midseason premier pulled in 12.3 million viewers, on a night where it was battling the Grammy Awards no less, I couldn't help but ask myself what the draw was. Is it the horror? No, it's not that scary. There's action, but it's spread thinly between episodes. It strikes me mostly as a drama. A drama with zombies. And not a particularly well written one either, though that has been improving. Almost all the characters started out poorly by either reacting to things unrealistically, or simply not seeing something that was glaringly obvious and would only require a two-year-old's ability to infer (Seriously, Andrea, why are you still boning the one-eyed psychopath with the zombie head collection who tried to kill all of your friends? I'm pretty sure every super-villain cliche was covered in that description. Have you not seen "media" before?). Most of those characters have evolved, maybe because of better writing (But probably because people be gettin' fired like crazy behind the scenes).

Not Andrea though. She still sucks.

The rare instance where a meme is the perfect expository tool.

Go onto any Walking Dead message board (or save yourself the trouble and don't) and you'll see that many fans defend the show, although with one caveat. They'll say something to the effect of, "It's so good. You just have to keep watching past season two." Uh, really? You realize that the show isn't even through with its third season yet, right? Conceding that, yeah, two thirds of the show is bad, is a pretty piss poor way of convincing someone that the show is good. And I've used that argument before too, back when I was trying to figure out why I thought the show was good.

Then I realized that I don't think the show is good. There is nothing particularly special about it. Zombies are a dime a dozen these days (I want to say that Warm Bodies, the zombie romance movie, is the thing that finally jumped the zombie shark, but I'll reserve that ultimate judgement until I see it), and the Walking Dead has the unenviable task of remaining relevant in a sea of zombies and gore. That's a difficult proposition, especially when the characters, even the good ones, kind of suck. But I still love the show, it's one of the few that I actual pencil into my schedule to sit down every Sunday night and watch. So I changed my question from "Why is the Walking Dead a good show" to "Why do I like the Walking Dead." Suddenly the answers come to me so much easier.

Zombies get fucked up.

Everything I've ever wanted in a still shot.

I mean they completely get their shit ruined, zombies and people alike. Every episode.

This show is more violent than most R rated movies, and it isn't afraid to be ballsy with the subject matter. In the first five minutes of the very first episode, a three-year-old zombie girl is shot in the face with a magnum revolver. You know what kind of show you're in for before the opening credits begin to roll. The show goes on to deal with life and death, loss of innocence, adultery, abortion (my two favorite "A" words), betrayal, politics, mental illness, and racism.

Also, zombies get utterly fucking destroyed every episode.

So when I look at it like that, why the hell wouldn't I love the show? Although the characters aren't the best, I respect that the writers are willing to tackle the subject matter that they do. That kind of writing isn't easy and is usually reserved for the internet (AKA the moral black market), but here we have it on a mainstream television show. One that is growing in popularity almost on a weekly basis. Not only do I love watching the show, but I also look forward to jumping onto Facebook when it's over to see what people are saying about it. It's a show that sparks discussion. You can debate why a character made a certain decision, you can speculate about what another character is thinking or just how insane they might be going, or you can say, "Dude, how about that zombie that Michonne cut in half with her samurai sword! Blood and guts everywhere! Let's drink whiskey!!!" Say what you want about the show, but as long as it still tackles this tough subject matter, as long as zombie blood is sprayed liberally at the screen, and, most importantly, as long as it remembers what kind of show it is, I (and apparently millions of others) will continue to tune in week after week.

But the second it forgets its roots (guts?), I'm out.